E3 2008: Bioshock First Look

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Welcome back to the circus of exclusive value!

By Jeff Haynes

It's been known for a while now that Bioshock, the first person action RPG that rocked 360s last year, would be coming to the PS3. But for the most part, it was assumed that the title would be a port of the original game with some improved texture work and other visual enhancements. That was a large mistake, as 2K Marin and 2K Games are planning on bringing exclusive PS3 downloadable content and extras to the game to make the title feel like a completely new experience. At E3 today, we were shown a sneak peek at what players will be able to expect when the title is released later this year.

One of the things that the designers wanted to focus on was exploring new toolsets for the game. With the original Bioshock, players became accustomed to the shooting mechanics, plasmids and gene tonics rather quickly. But for the PS3 version, the developers wanted to mess with these familiar concepts, re-arranging a player's perception of how the world could operate and how they would play a particular game. To that end, the PS3 version of Bioshock will include a new feature known as Challenge Rooms, a separate mode available from the main menu that will present little vignettes set outside of the story narrative, but will have the flavor and the nature of the game world itself.

One of the examples shown was presented with a pulp comic visual for a loading screen, which displayed Sander Cohen trapping a Little Sister atop a diabolical looking Ferris Wheel in a new area known as the Grand Carnival. Players were tasked with trying to get the Little Sister down from her high area, but there was a catch – the mechanism for the Ferris Wheel required electricity and players were stripped of their Electrobolt Plasmid, meaning that they would have to come up with creative ways of producing electricity for the machine. Over the course of twelve minutes, we saw at least three rather creative twists made to try to solve this problem, including shooting the controls with Electric Buckshot, firing electrified Trap Bolts, and eventually gathering a Static Discharge gene tonic, although the demo paused before a horde of splicers triggered the effects of the tonic.

Apart from the puzzle like nature of the challenge, players will have full interaction with the game world, so you can explore the areas around the Grand Carnival and even interact with the carnival games. For instance, there were ball toss and hit the can stations arranged along a hallway. By using telekinesis to toss a tennis ball into a pyramid of cans or into a basket, you will be rewarded with an Eve Hypo to aid your powers. However, you won't want to take your time leisurely wandering the halls – a timer starts as soon as the challenge begins, and these are tied to trophies you can acquire, so speed will definitely be of the essence. While we only saw a little of the challenge, it was extremely cool to see that the development team is trying their best to make sure this isn't just a bland port when the game is finally released later this year.